Glimpses
by Brea45
Summary: Glimpses of John Winchesters more interesting hunts. Series of One-shots.
1. Glimpses

Glimpses of Humanity in a Monsters Eyes

John Winchester questioned his choices on more occasions than he could count, despite what his sons might tell you. Everyday he questioned himself. Was raising his sons to be Hunters a good thing; or just the convenient thing for a man who lost the one person who made him feel normal?

It was true that he and Mary didn't have a perfect relationship. Who did? But there was one moment, when his sons were both nearly grown; Dean sleeping around, Sam distant and rebellious that John first questioned choosing this lifestyle for himself and on doing so his boys.

There was a woman, to this day he didn't know exactly what to call her. All he knew was that she wasn't human but had been once a long time ago. She was young looking, but her eyes were aged in a way that couldn't really be described. Her appearance changed at least three times in the days that John knew her, the only way he recognized her in the end was that her eyes would gleam strangely when light hit them at the right angle. Though he hadn't known that until long after.

The first time he encountered her she was a teenager, with dark hair and a soft smile. She flirted mercilessly with his oldest son. Dean was nineteen and always seemed to be with one woman or another. John didn't like it, but he didn't prevent it in any way either. He figured if his son couldn't have long term relationships, he might as well have this.

John hadn't realized until after the incident that she hadn't been what she claimed to be. Not until she left Dean and got her hands on Sammy. She had been blond, built, strong willed, and compassionate. Too much like Mary, too much like the woman that Sammy should see as his mother. Too old to be appropriate for his youngest to be dating. It took him too long to recognize the danger.

She really changed after that, days after his sons had been waylaid with an unknown lethargy and coma like sleep he had found her in what he supposed was the closest to her true form he was going to ever see.

She was standing in a field at the edge of town, in a ditch at the side of the road, looking out over an unattended field that had two horses and a handful of wild birds fluttering chaotically about catching insects mid flight. She seemed to be studying them, her, now auburn, hair glowing gold and copper in the setting sunlight, her dark green dress being blown back encompassing her thick frame as her head tilted back to look up at the darkening sky.

As John pulled over to confront whatever supernatural creature she was, she began to speak. "I never meant to hurt any of them..."

"Yeah, but you did," John said raising his shotgun.

She turned to him with tear filled eyes and a sad smile. "They said I would be making them happy," She turned away again to look at the sunset. "I was too young to realize there was a price for such things, and when I did it was too late. I was no longer human."

"My son's are in a coma because of you!" John shouted because he was trying desperately to stay angry with this young woman. Trying to will himself to pull the trigger.

"I don't want to do this anymore," She sounded old, tired. "But I can't do this myself. I can't end it myself. I needed someone like you to finish it for me."

In the blink of an eye she was holding the end of John's gun to her forehead tears now flowing down her cheeks. "If you kill me they will wake up and there will be no more sacrifices in the name of bliss."

There was a plea in her voice, soft and commanding though it was.

"I'm sorry," John whispered, not entirely sure why he was asking forgiveness of a monster as he pulled the trigger. After that, he started seeing the humanity in the things they were hunting, saw how much some of them seemed to care, for either one another or the people they destroyed. It caused a pressure and strain to slowly build, the hunt for yellow-eyes got more fierce and Sam left for college and Dean was now old enough to go out on his own. John stayed as far from them as possible because sooner or later this...doubt. Would get one of his sons killed.

AN: Now I have _no_ idea where this came from...muses seem to be pelting me with mini-fiction plots or something. I like this enough to post it though so...tell me what you think.


	2. Burning Dead

Title: Burning Dead

Author: Brea45 aka Wiccanmama

Characters/Pairings: John, Dean, Sam.

Warnings: slightly disturbing imagery.

Rating: Teen

This was maddening. This thing - in the shape of a large curvy woman with chestnut hair and a flowing white and blue cotton gown - could not be killed. At least not that John had found and he'd tried everything. Iron didn't do anything to it except make her pour tainted river water over her injured shoulder before continuing to wet down the bones and ash at her feet with no visible injury. Same went for the silver, the holy water made her smile at him, the salt made her blink, Christo made her look at him like he were slightly crazy, and fire sizzled and spluttered as if she were surrounded in a bubble of water.

She stood or knelt there, next to that river, with the charred remains of some poor bastard at her feet, scooping up the silty water from the diminished river into her tiny gold chalice and then pouring it onto her chosen victim of the day. There was a different one each day the damage different, the flesh still hanging onto some, bones charred and blackened on others. John hadn't figured out how she got the bodies yet, or who they were, or why she would pour water onto them but the thing wasn't human and it had to die.

John pulled in all his favors, called every hunter he had ever come across in his eleven years of hunting and found nothing on the thing she could possibly be. There were theories of course but they never panned out. Then, when John had left the motel room for the second week in a row to try and figure out how to at least maim the thing, Dean and Sam snuck out to follow him.

John scowled at his sons because they both knew better, Sam was determined and Dean resigned and there was nothing John could do about it now that they were in the woods with him. The woman mostly acted like John wasn't there and Sam was the expert researcher in the family, maybe he could figure out what this thing was.

John reluctantly led the boys to the riverside, the water no more than a slight trickling at this point due to the dam the local wildlife had built the night before but it didn't stop the woman from returning and distributing her water. No matter how murky the water was, or how stained her dress was getting. John stayed on guard, always wary for the proverbial ax to drop. This fairly pretty woman was no exception.

They all watched as she continued her work, her hands getting caked in mud, her shiny little chalice dull with muck and mud. Sam, being the least experienced hunter and still unable to keep from voicing his ever churning thoughts said. "Have you tried talking to her?"

The woman's hand stilled, glass raised ready to tilt over the body and her face turning to look at them. Fully acknowledging John for the first time without first being injured or provoked.

"Sam!" John hissed in warning not taking his eyes off the woman who had yet to move or avert her gaze.

"What? It's a good question. You ever ask her why she's doing that or ask her to stop?"

"Be quiet Sammy!" Dean stage whispered leveling his own gun on the mysterious creature.

John studied her every twitch her every blink, which was only two in the some three minutes they had been leveled on them. Then she moved and John fell to the muddy ground, every molecule of air ripped out of his lungs, Sam looked to be in the same situation. Only Dean looked like he were able to fight but didn't so much as move the pistol to follower her movements, his eyes were glassy and wide.

"Give me a sacrifice and I will release them," She said as she stood near chest to chest with John's eldest son. Her voice was soft and flowed like the murky water she constantly poured.

Dean looked groggily at Sam then John before looking back at her. "Why?"

"I require a sacrifice for the burning dead of this place," She said simply holding out her cup out in front of her. Still mud caked with a small amount of water sloshing around the inside. "I require blood to finish the cleansing."

Dean looked back at his family, who were now starting to turn blue from the lack of oxygen. Dean hurriedly grabbed a knife out of his pocket and sliced his palm, as soon as the blood hit metal of the chalice the mud disappeared and John and Sam were allowed to take in large gasping breaths.

The woman smiled and walked back to her place by her burned body and poured the blood tainted water into the trickling stream. There was a blinding flash of blue light and the water level rose at an alarming rate, enough so that the water that had once been several feet away from the newest corpse was now lapping at it's hands.

A beatific relieved smile crossed the woman's face and she approached Dean again, this time with a full glass of clear water in a sparkling crystal chalice; no gold and jewel incrusted mud caked monstrosity in sight, and poured it over his hand. "The righteous man has come to free me of my burdens, I thank you," She then poured the water over Dean's still bleeding palm and kissed him on the forehead.

There was a blinding flash of pure white light, the shadow of large black wings, and a dissonance that drowned out every other noise in the wood.

_Beep Beep Beep_

John woke up in his motel room with the the shrill beeping of the alarm clock and the light streaming directly into his eyes from the crack in the curtains. He shook his head and swore. That had been one fucked up dream.

As he got out of the bed and grabbed the coffeepot to fill with water he didn't notice Dean roll over on the roll away bed, or the slightly pink scar on his palm and still semi wet imprint of a woman's lips upon his forehead.


End file.
